Shrinking City, Shrinking Collective Soul…
- Priya Chetty Rajagopal
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Ruminatiing on World Heritage Day.
This Article written in 2019, but remains valid still ..
In the last month, two buildings disappeared in thunderous silence -The East West School In Basvangudi and the heritage bungalow inside Old Woodlands Hotel , where I hear the preamble to the Indian constitution was partially written . Pictures of the building skeleton, the demolishers stacking up the old doors and windows for sale, catch at your gut. But what happens when public heritage collectively owned by the citizens faces the axe?
The Court has decided the old EC building in beloved Cubbon Park must be demolished to make way for a 7 storey High Court Annexe. Last year iconic Janatha Bazar was to be razed for a multistorey Complex. And before that Krumbiegel Hall at Lalbagh was bulldozed. Inconvenient lakes & parks have quietly disappeared. For what? We don’t hear about the smaller ones at all. For example, part of a 120 year Queen Vet Hospital has faced the axe.
Bengaluru isn't the old city many of us remember from the past.
The Garden City was the envy of other cities with their greys when we had our greens. We did not have even fans in our houses and hostels in the 60's and 70's. Slowly but surely 'development' caught up with us. The parks, lakes, trees, buildings went the way of the dinosaurs. Hit by the progress meteor, the city went into inevitable urban decline. Every monsoon brings more misery with potholes, flooding, rotting garbage, chaotic traffic. Cherished old memories came crashing town and many more buildings were replaced by faceless structures of steel, glass and concrete. You can decide if the cost of progress has been worthwhile.
All of us drive fancier cars, live in swankier houses, eat in tonier restaurants, watch more slick content on tv, laptops and phones but are we really better off than we were? When we could walk many a mile, sit under a shady park bench, drink a filter coffee at Ranganatha Cafe or an omelette at the India Coffee House, watch a film in Plaza or Rex Theatre ?
Most great cities have also grown but have found a way to preserve their shared past memories. London, Paris, Prague, Vienna and many others are examples of that. There the past coexists with the progress and modernity that is inevitable. Urban decay as a cost of progress is a huge price to pay for Bengaluru. The vision and planning needed to manage both progress and heritage is sadly lacking in governance and voices calling for this are seen as elitist at best. So the decay will continue unabated and soon breathing will be difficult- literally as well. Bengaluru will be another grey, polluted urban chawl and then the cities consumers will leave for another pasture and the citizens will be left with the debris. Strangers in their own city, surrounded by garbage, potholed roads, flooded roads and basements - and no undo button.
In our Heritage Beku Whatsapp group, actor and Bangalorean Arundhati Nag shared a nostalgic picture of herself with her grand daughter Anandi at Cubbon Park, ruefully wondering what would be left for the little girl to show her children & grandchildren. It brought heritage up close and personal .
What Bengaluru needs post haste is a 'past forward' policy to quote an architect friend, a public-private funded heritage fund to conserve and rebuild it's remaining heritage which includes its buildings, parks, trees, shared spaces and to create more of the same. Progress can't be halted but it has to be managed and there is just so many people and buildings and businesses that the city can support effectively. The answer is to create alternate venues for investment and growth as the entire state and country needs to grow, not just one hub which is creaking at its seams. Even the consumers are complaining about the lack of public services, so no one is happy with the status quo.
Whether Bengaluru's governance will do what's needed is not so clear to me given past experience. However the need for it is not just palpable but downright overdue.
A heritage law and a heritage authority is overdue .
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